So I wanted to look more into this and basically this quote is slightly adjusted to change the meaning of what the guy actually said.
He was basically saying that if wind turbines aren’t in good spots, then they may never generate enough energy as it took to make them.
However, the important part that this meme leaves out, is if the wind turbine was in a great (or perfect?) spot, it may generate that energy in as little as three years.
Apparently this is the full quote:
“The concept of net energy must also be applied to renewable sources of energy, such as windmills and photovoltaics. A two-megawatt windmill contains 260 tonnes of steel requiring 170 tonnes of coking coal and 300 tonnes of iron ore, all mined, transported and produced by hydrocarbons. The question is: how long must a windmill generate energy before it creates more energy than it took to build it? At a good wind site, the energy payback day could be in three years or less; in a poor location, energy payback may be never. That is, a windmill could spin until it falls apart and never generate as much energy as was invested in building it.”
So the real question is, are windmills being placed in good spots or do we have diversity hires in charge of that operation?
Kind of. In the US, windmills are generally placed in good spots. The companies operate for profit and want to make money back, and if you look at a map of US wind power it basically matches with the overlap of wind speed + where people live. However, it also means that we're starting to hit capacity. Iowa and South Dakota can do fine on wind, but barring offshore wind farms, most of the states on the east/west/south will never be able to efficiently harness wind.
Outside of the US though, there's lots of Europe that's doing renewables for politics, and they just pop down windmills because it's the thing to do. If you check their map of wind power, some countries are clearly pushing for on a political basis rather than reality.
That said, wind is still miles better than solar. Solar gets put up all sorts of places that make no fucking sense, while wind is usually only put up by big companies that want money back. And solar is also the 'sexier' renewable, so it gets political support/subsidies in weather climates that it should never be placed in.
Solar sucks for centralized generation because our solar panels suck. Both at making power and in how we have to make them.
But as far as generating power without a lot of external support, solar is great. Great for off the grid.
I have no idea how good it is at reducing CO2, but it's great at reducing government. I look at that as basically what is happening in California. When the power goes out in California, it's usually when it's hot and sunny outside. The people with solar panels are just planning ahead for the government/private corpo's failures.
Yeah but someone would actually have to keep track of this in order to do efficient power generation rather than just mandating a certain amount of "renewable," paying off your friends, and feeling good about yourself. As usual, technology isn't the problem. Greed is.
[ - ] germ22 1 point 2 yearsJun 4, 2023 01:09:29 ago (+1/-0)
I tried to calculate this once. Only for the smelting of the steel for the tower. If my math was right a wind turbine would need to run for about 25 years at 100% of it's rated capacity to produce enough electricity to produce the 200 tons of steel for it's tower. Expected life of most wind turbines, 25 years. I'd love to see someone unbiased do the math of energy in vs. energy out. It would be interesting if i did my math right or not with the numbers i was able to find.
A ton of steel costs less than $100 in electricity to make. One site says 1,864 million metric tons of crude steel were produced in 2020. 200 tons is nothing.
Will a wind turbine produce $20,000 worth of electricity in its lifetime? Absolutely. The install costs are more than the materials cost - and windmills pop up all the time.
Will renewables be able to power industry to the point where things are self-sufficient? Most likely never, because many industries rely on continuation of power, and losing power for several seconds causes massive disruption, let alone for up to hours at a time.
What they're doing is building expensive energy sources with relatively cheap energy sources. If the cost of oil and non-renewables is going to rise in the future, then the thinking goes, it makes sense to build 'renewables' now instead of later.
It's just another variation of borrowing from the future to pay for the present.
Thats one way of looking at it. The problem is they aren't any good at anticipating or managing load, availability, or distribution.
You can't plan for these things when you're building infrastructure before you have demand. Demand forces infrastructure, infrastructure gets planned around demand.
Otherwise you end up with planned cities that stagnate, like D.C. They play catchup too late, and you end up with rome, where everything is super expensive because they started building out to meet demand long past the rise in demand.
This goes as well for things like road capacity, water, sewage, housing, etc.
Green is another word for "a solution searching after a problem."
The demand is there, but its been artificially hiked early--in part because of restrictions on building and traditional resource extraction to begin with.
Which means while availability (of everything we call 'civilization') will probably grow, the reliability will decrease while the variability in spot availability (especially during demand spikes) will increase.
Translation: everything becomes haiti or somalia, with a higher available standard of living (which says nothing about affordability).
[ + ] Tbneer967
[ - ] Tbneer967 7 points 2 yearsJun 4, 2023 01:39:02 ago (+7/-0)
He was basically saying that if wind turbines aren’t in good spots, then they may never generate enough energy as it took to make them.
However, the important part that this meme leaves out, is if the wind turbine was in a great (or perfect?) spot, it may generate that energy in as little as three years.
Apparently this is the full quote:
“The concept of net energy must also be applied to renewable sources of energy, such as windmills and photovoltaics. A two-megawatt windmill contains 260 tonnes of steel requiring 170 tonnes of coking coal and 300 tonnes of iron ore, all mined, transported and produced by hydrocarbons. The question is: how long must a windmill generate energy before it creates more energy than it took to build it? At a good wind site, the energy payback day could be in three years or less; in a poor location, energy payback may be never. That is, a windmill could spin until it falls apart and never generate as much energy as was invested in building it.”
So the real question is, are windmills being placed in good spots or do we have diversity hires in charge of that operation?
[ + ] usedoilanalysis
[ - ] usedoilanalysis 2 points 2 yearsJun 4, 2023 06:12:09 ago (+2/-0)
[ + ] Aze
[ - ] Aze 2 points 2 yearsJun 4, 2023 07:12:33 ago (+2/-0)
[ + ] xachariah
[ - ] xachariah 0 points 2 yearsJun 4, 2023 07:05:26 ago (+0/-0)
Outside of the US though, there's lots of Europe that's doing renewables for politics, and they just pop down windmills because it's the thing to do. If you check their map of wind power, some countries are clearly pushing for on a political basis rather than reality.
That said, wind is still miles better than solar. Solar gets put up all sorts of places that make no fucking sense, while wind is usually only put up by big companies that want money back. And solar is also the 'sexier' renewable, so it gets political support/subsidies in weather climates that it should never be placed in.
[ + ] bonghits4jeebus
[ - ] bonghits4jeebus 0 points 2 yearsJun 4, 2023 22:16:00 ago (+0/-0)
But as far as generating power without a lot of external support, solar is great. Great for off the grid.
I have no idea how good it is at reducing CO2, but it's great at reducing government. I look at that as basically what is happening in California. When the power goes out in California, it's usually when it's hot and sunny outside. The people with solar panels are just planning ahead for the government/private corpo's failures.
[ + ] 2Drunk
[ - ] 2Drunk 0 points 2 yearsJun 4, 2023 11:15:51 ago (+0/-0)
[ + ] Swej_Ehtsag
[ - ] Swej_Ehtsag 0 points 2 yearsJun 4, 2023 13:55:35 ago (+0/-0)
[ + ] bonghits4jeebus
[ - ] bonghits4jeebus 0 points 2 yearsJun 4, 2023 22:18:55 ago (+0/-0)
[ + ] bonghits4jeebus
[ - ] bonghits4jeebus 0 points 2 yearsJun 4, 2023 22:14:15 ago (+0/-0)
[ + ] NeonGreen
[ - ] NeonGreen 4 points 2 yearsJun 4, 2023 07:49:37 ago (+4/-0)
[ + ] germ22
[ - ] germ22 1 point 2 yearsJun 4, 2023 01:09:29 ago (+1/-0)
Expected life of most wind turbines, 25 years.
I'd love to see someone unbiased do the math of energy in vs. energy out. It would be interesting if i did my math right or not with the numbers i was able to find.
[ + ] localsal
[ - ] localsal 2 points 2 yearsJun 4, 2023 10:32:37 ago (+2/-0)
A ton of steel costs less than $100 in electricity to make. One site says 1,864 million metric tons of crude steel were produced in 2020. 200 tons is nothing.
Will a wind turbine produce $20,000 worth of electricity in its lifetime? Absolutely. The install costs are more than the materials cost - and windmills pop up all the time.
Will renewables be able to power industry to the point where things are self-sufficient? Most likely never, because many industries rely on continuation of power, and losing power for several seconds causes massive disruption, let alone for up to hours at a time.
[ + ] prototype
[ - ] prototype 0 points 2 yearsJun 4, 2023 07:48:28 ago (+0/-0)
If the cost of oil and non-renewables is going to rise in the future, then the thinking goes, it makes sense to build 'renewables' now instead of later.
It's just another variation of borrowing from the future to pay for the present.
[ + ] Prairie
[ - ] Prairie 1 point 2 yearsJun 4, 2023 07:52:48 ago (+1/-0)
[ + ] prototype
[ - ] prototype 1 point 2 yearsJun 4, 2023 08:28:54 ago (+1/-0)
Thats one way of looking at it. The problem is they aren't any good at anticipating or managing load, availability, or distribution.
You can't plan for these things when you're building infrastructure before you have demand.
Demand forces infrastructure, infrastructure gets planned around demand.
Otherwise you end up with planned cities that stagnate, like D.C.
They play catchup too late, and you end up with rome, where everything is super expensive because they started building out to meet demand long past the rise in demand.
This goes as well for things like road capacity, water, sewage, housing, etc.
Green is another word for "a solution searching after a problem."
The demand is there, but its been artificially hiked early--in part because of restrictions on building and traditional resource extraction to begin with.
Which means while availability (of everything we call 'civilization') will probably grow, the reliability will decrease while the variability in spot availability (especially during demand spikes) will increase.
Translation: everything becomes haiti or somalia, with a higher available standard of living (which says nothing about affordability).
[ + ] usedoilanalysis
[ - ] usedoilanalysis 0 points 2 yearsJun 4, 2023 06:10:09 ago (+0/-0)
[ + ] Wahaha
[ - ] Wahaha 0 points 2 yearsJun 4, 2023 03:56:36 ago (+0/-0)
[ + ] Thyhorrorcosmic103
[ - ] Thyhorrorcosmic103 0 points 2 yearsJun 4, 2023 06:35:19 ago (+0/-0)
[ + ] Master_Foo
[ - ] Master_Foo 0 points 2 yearsJun 4, 2023 00:32:31 ago (+0/-0)